I STILL DREAM OF ORGONON

Molly Ivins, RIP

Aw, hell.Molly Ivins has passed on. She was one of the best political columnists around, someone who could turn a phrase so well it’d bite whoever she was writing about right square on the ass; just ask Dubya, who was a favorite target of hers. I’ve long admired her writing and her passion for speaking out about what she thought was right; newspapers are about to get a whole lot less interesting without her.

21 thoughts on “Molly Ivins, RIP”

Aww, Man. I liked her a lot. I liked how, when people would try to box her in to a political identity (liberal, democrat, etc.), she would say something like, “My name is Molly Ivans. That’s the only label I carry.”

Been a fan since Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?, 15 years ago. She was a riot to hear speak, with that whiskey-textured Texas drawl. As I recall she moderated the Franken-O’Reilly pissing contest at BookExpo a few years back. This is very sad.

My reaction exactly. I did get to hear her speak at a conference some years ago. And Pat Schroeder moderated the Franken-O’Reilly pissing contest at BookExpo, Molly was supposed to be the 3rd speaker but barely got a word in edgewise.

Verdammt. I saw her name over and over, skimming my LJ friends page, stopped, and said, “Aw, damn.”

You know, for a long time I didn’t know if she was liberal or not. I know that sounds weird, but where I grew up, her column was carried only occasionally and always next to Mona Charen’s. And I read her and just thought she made sense. (In a viciously funny and accurate way, natch.)

My favorite Molly Ivins story: she wrote an article after Decca Mitford (Jessica Treuhaft) passed away. In the article, she was talking about how Decca had been called to testify before HUAC. So, she and her husband gently tried to explain to their young daughter that they had to go do this, that they didn’t know what was going to happen, that they might go to prison or a re-education camp…

“CAMP!” their daughter said. “Oh, hooray! I love camp! Let’s all go!”

I read this in a public library in Boston and just fell out of my chair laughing.

Oh, bloody hell. I really, really loved reading her columns. When “politics as usual” had me depressed, there she was, not missing one iota of the truth, but still capable of making me laugh. And making me still want to stand up and fight. We’ll miss you, Molly.